Green’s Dictionary of Slang

loggerhead n.

a fool, a dullard.

[1567		R. Edwards Damon and Pithias (1571) Eiiii: For well I knew it was some madheded chylde That inuented this name, that the logheaded knaue might be begilde].
c.1595		Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost IV iii: Ah you whoreson loggerhead.
1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 2: In defiance of those terrible blockhouses, their loggerheads, make a true discovery of their wild (yet habitable) Country.
1616		W. Haughton English-Men For My Money A4: Why sirra Frisco, Villaine, Loggerhead, where art thou?
1623		J. Taylor ‘World runnes on Wheeles’ in Works (1869) II 237: Most of them are such Loggerheads, that they either will not learne, but as I thinke would scorne to bee taught.
c.1632		R. Brome A Novella IV ii: He takes him for the Dutch loggerhead / We saw to day in the Piazzo.
1654		Merry Mercurie 14 July 10: A Country lob [...] asked he that stood at the dore, what hee sold? Logger-heads quoth hee; tis a sign you have good utterance for them quoth the other, for I see but one left in the shop.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 48: How like a Logger-head you stand!
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 70: Ye Logger-head, quo he, is this / A time to sleep and smoak.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 222: Calling him Dunce, and Loggerhead.
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: Puppy! Owl! Loggerhed! O silly country put!
1697		Cibber Womans Wit IV i: Who’s that you will have the Whip for, you Loggerhead you?
1701		Farquhar Sir Harry Wildair IV ii: Sad Loggerheads, to mistake a Door in James Street for a House in Covent Garden.
1711		Swift letter xxviii 21 Aug. Journal to Stella (1901) 275: Pretty, dear, little, naughty, saucy M.D. Silly, impudent, loggerhead Presto.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 24: The Boy reply’d, – Loggerheads. Humph, says the fellow [...] you have but one left – Yes, says the Boy, come in, and I’ll show you another.
1746		A. Hamilton Tuesday Club Bk V in Micklus (1995) 92: Ye Impertinent, precise, Stiff, Starch’d up, Cynical Logerheads.
1753		Richardson Sir Charles Grandison (1812) I 5: Come, Fenwick, let us retire, and lay our two loggerheads together.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 26: Give o’er, you ass, and know the odds / Betwixt your loggerheads and gods.
1777		Sheridan Trip to Scarborough I ii: Come, Lory, lay your loggerhead to mine.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1797		Sporting Mag. July X 222/1: The [tavern] sign has two human heads painted on one side, with the words ‘We three Loggerheads be’.
1815		(con. 18C) W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 206: What plea, you loggerhead?
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 15: What’s that whoreson loggerhead wheeling for?
1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 31 Mar. 2/4: We suppose that members of the company are ‘loggerheads’. We hope better for them.
1837		John o’Groat’s Jrnl 6 Oct. 4/1: Longhead and Loggerhead opposed one another. ’Twas a glorious election [...] Longhead had the sense, But Loggerhead the pence.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 377: Even this illiterate loggerhead [...] knew and venerated the name of Ego.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 336: Snob, Poltroon, Dwarf, Fool, Gull-catcher, / Loggerhead, Impostor base.
1854		M.J. Holmes Tempest and Sunshine 40: Miss Kate warn’t sent to Kentuck for nothin’, and unless you’re a bigger loggerhead than I think you be, you’ll try to find out what she come for.
1883		in Eng. Folk-Rhymes (1892) 408: Here I lie, The length of a looby, The breadth of a booby, And three parts of a loggerhead.
1928		M. Meredith ‘The Human Head in Sl.’ in AS III:5 408: ‘Blockhead,’ ‘dunderhead,’ ‘dunderpate,’ ‘hot-head,’ ‘loggerhead,’ ‘numbskull,’ ‘numskull,’ ‘noodle,’ and ‘noodle-head’ are terms of unequivocal disparagement.

In derivatives

logger-headed (adj.)

stupid, dull.

1593		Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew IV i: You logger-headed and unpolish’d grooms!
1599		Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 56: It being a sweaty loggerhead greasie sowter.
1600		N. Breton Pasquil’s Madcappe in Grosart (1879) I 6/1: Who hath nor seen a logger-headed Asse.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 96: A rabble of loggerheaded physicians, muzzled in the brabbling shop of sophisters.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 106: But like a logger-headed Lubber, Thou grinning stand’st, and seest me Blubber.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 142: He, though a Logger-headed Booby, / Shall firk Great Hannibals blind Toby.
1680		Head Eng. Rogue IV 119: A Logger-headed Fellow, taller by the Head than myself.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 288: That loggerheaded Mars I spy.
1803		‘C. Caustic’ Petition Against Tractorising Trumpery 54: That thus when Russians logger-headed, Were kill’d by Frenchmen ever dreaded, Darwin rejoic’d the filthy creatures Would serve for stock to make musquitoes.
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) xiv: My overgrown loggerheaded nephew.

In phrases

get/go/come to loggerheads (v.) (also be at loggerheads) [20C+ use is SE]

to (get into a) fight.

1635		R. Brome Sparagus Garden I i: They were the common talke of the towne for a paire of wranglers; still at strife for one trifle or other: they were at law logger-heads together.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: To go to Loggerheads, to go to Fisticuffs.
1701		Farquhar Sir Harry Wildair I i: They fell to Loggerheads about their Play-things.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: To go to Loggerheads, to fall to Fistycuffs or fighting in General.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1832		Quid 226: We are sure to get to loggerheads. Every thing goes wrong; and the skipper as cross as the devil.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 1248: They would be sure to have gone to loggerheads among themselves, and [...] tear each other's eyes.
1878		Leighton Buzzard Obs. 29 Oct. 3/4: Women at loggerheads. Emma baines [...] then turned up her sleeves, hit complainant in the eye, blackending it.
1892		Dundee Courier 17 Mar. 3/3: [headline] Dunfermline Bailies at loggerheads.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 46: Loggerheads, disagreement of parties.
1903		Eve. Post 2 May 2/5: He was said to the leader of a gang of hooligans known as the Loggerhead Boys.